Larry Long at the Cedar Cultural Center, Minneapolis 2010
Larry Long (born 1951 in Des Moines, Iowa) is an American singer-songwriter. Author Studs Terkel called him "a true American Troubadour."[1] Long has dedicated his career to celebrating everyday heroes through music, writing songs that highlight the lives of community builders and history makers. His work spans rural Alabama, Lakota communities, and struggling Midwest farmers.[2]
Long's work is rooted in the troubadour tradition. He has written and performed ballads celebrating community builders and history makers. While in his early 20s, Long wrote a song for farmers fighting a high voltage power line Pope County Blues and traveled with a tractorcade of family farmers to Washington, D.C. to demonstrate for fair prices. It was then he met Pete Seeger, who inspired him to organize the Mississippi River Revival, a decade-long campaign to clean up the Mississippi river.[3] In 1989, he assembled the first hometown tribute to Woody Guthrie in Okemah, Oklahoma[4] , which has evolved into the annual Woody Guthrie Folk Festival. In 2001 Long sang for Rosa Parks at the 45th anniversary of the Montgomery bus boycott.[5]
In 1989, while working with communities in rural Alabama, Long created an intergenerational process called Elders' Wisdom, Children's Song.[7] The program brings community elders into the classroom to share their life histories. Based on these stories, the children create songs and lyrical work that celebrate the diverse and often unsung history makers of their community.[8]
Awards
Long has received the Bush Artist Fellowship (1995),[9] the Pope John XXIII Award (2001, Viterbo University)[10] and the Spirit of Crazy Horse Award (2002, Reclaiming Youth International).[11] As a film producer, Longs work on the documentary Dodging Bullets—Stories from Survivors of Historical Trauma, has been awarded Best Documentary at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival,[12] the Bigfork International Film Festival,[citation needed] and the North Dakota Human Rights Film Festival awarded Dodging Bullets the Samuel Sprynczynatyk Storyteller Award: Best Documentary Feature.[13]
Discography (partial listing)
Sweet Thunder (1987, Flying Fish Records, produced with Billy Peterson).
It Takes a Lot of People (1989, Flying Fish Records).
Troubadour (1993, Flying Fish Records)
Living in a Rich Man's World (1995, Rounder/Atomic Theory Recordings).
The Psalms (1992, Stellar Records).
Hauling Freight, No Fences (1995, produced with Barry Kimm).
Here I Stand, Elders' Wisdom, Children's Song (1997, Smithsonian Folkways).
Run For Freedom (1997, Flying Fish Records, produced by Marian Moore).
Well May the World Go (2000, Smithsonian Folkways)
I Will Be Your Friend: Songs and Activities for Young Peacemakers (2006).
↑ "Mississippi River Revival," pp.319–330, by Sandra Grue, from Ringing in the Wilderness: The North Country Anvil, edited by Rhoda Gilman. Holly Cow! Press Press. 1995
↑ Patrick Klaybor; Larry Long; Wade Fernandez; Ben Yahola; Michael Bucher; David HB Drake; Clinton Miller; Skip Jones (2007). Sacred Sites Songs (CD). Archived from the original on March 5, 2020. Retrieved March 4, 2020. This CD is a modern folk hybrid including Native American, American folk and Blues influences.
Sources
Deep Community: Adventures in the Modern Folk Underground, Scott Alarik, p.131. Black Wolf Press. 2003
"Four Part Harmony" p.50-53 from The Compassionate Rebel: Energized by Anger, Motivated by Love, Bert E. Barlowe, p.50-53. Triangle Park Creative Press. 2002
Powerline: the First Battle of American’s Energy War, Senator Paul Wellstone and Barry M. Caspar, p.24. University of Massachusetts Press. 1983
Featured interview with Larry Long, Sing Out! Magazine, V.33. No. 4, Summer 1988
Blue Guitar Highways, Paul Metsa, pp.236–237. University of Minnesota Press. 2011
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